


Hard/Heavy

by phalangine



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, are they together? we just don’t know!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 21:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20180659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: John has interesting sleep hygiene.Or: a five plus one without the plus one





	Hard/Heavy

**Author's Note:**

> I woke hard  
I woke heavy  
-James Vincent McMorrow, “Cavalier”

1.

Chas is dozing on the couch, exhausted after being Geraldine’s adult supervision and chauffeur for all three days of her long weekend then driving down to Atlanta. He’s exactly the right kind of warm, and he can tell that if he lets himself relax into it, he’ll be asleep before he can question the silence in the house.

He doesn’t hear John until it’s too late.

John flops down on couch parallel to him, pushing their backs together and crunching on what has to be a slice of toast over Chas’ clean floor, without a word.

“I just cleaned,” Chas groans.

“What do you think about holsters with bottles of holy water?”

“Stop using Zed’s phone to go on Etsy, and don’t waste money on things I can make.”

“But it makes me happy, Chas. Don’t you want that?”

Chas sighs and burrows deeper into the back of the couch, chasing the last shreds of hope he has that he’ll be able to sleep soon.

“Again, I can do that myself,” Chas mumbles, replying to the question he thinks John probably asked rather than the one he actually did.

John won’t stop asking about that holster with all the pockets for bottles, or maybe something worse like a bandolier, so it’s a safe guess.

He should have paid more attention because John goes quiet, but the silence, coupled with the steady pressure of John’s back against his, is so comfortable Chas can’t help but relax into sleep.

2.

“No.”

John turns his most wide-eyed, wounded look on Chas. “It’s just one night, and we can put it on someone else’s credit card. Don’t you want to ive a little?”

Chas shakes his head. “No, _ you _ want to live a _ lot,_ which means you’ll sneak back with a bunch of people and lock me out, so I have to sleep in the taxi. I’m too old to be sleeping back there, John. I have a kid.”

“‘A bunch of people’?” John echoes, scandalized. “The most I’ve had at once was two.”

“Three, actually.”

“When?”

Chas rolls his eyes. “London, 2002. You crashed that guy’s wedding and slept with his sister, her boyfriend, and someone on the bride’s side.”

“Oh, that’s right.” John frowns at him. “How do you know my one night stands better than I do?”

“Funnily enough, the room you used was a double I paid for, and I wound up sleeping in the cab.”

John has the decency to look repentant before he finds his smirk. “This time, it’s on Kevin Mossimo’s account, isn’t it? Your bank account is perfectly safe.”

Chas’ bed is not, clearly, but he’s learned to take his victories where he can with John.

The woman behind the desk looks between them with an expression that says she’s deliberately not hearing what they’re saying. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”

Chas bites back his accusation that John just wants to stay in the presidential suite and probably tricked Kevin Mossimo into being a dick just so John could steal his wallet without incurring Chas’ ire.

“Yes, luv?” John asks, turning back to her and cranking up the Englishness.

Chas rolls his eyes. John even fluffed up his accent; he must really want the room if he’s making this much effort.

“Will you be purchasing the suite?”

John raises his brows at Chas, and Chas sighs. Under his black t-shirt, he’s still covered in blood, courtesy of a run in with one of John’s very human friend-turned-nemeses. There’s birdshot in his shoulder, too, also courtesy of John’s “frenemy”. It hurts, and if he doesn’t get it out on his own before his body heals, he’s going to have to go back in for it.

Chas really doesn’t want to have to do that.

“If you bring anyone back, you’re hitchhiking home,” he warns.

John beams at him. “We’ll take it,” he tells the clerk.

xx

Chas allows himself one longing look at the bed before he heads to the bathroom to do what needs to be done.

He’s almost got all the shot out when John knocks on the door.

“Steak or pork chops?”

“I’m Jewish,” Chas grunts, mostly because he’s trying to grab a particularly slippery pellet. “No pig.”

“Ah, that’s right. No bacon with breakfast, then, eh?”

“When is there ever bacon with my breakfast?”

“You did eat shrimp that time in New Hampshire.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I like shrimp.”

He can feel John’s scowl and smiles to himself. It’s good to be the annoying one for once.

“You’ve never had pork,” John presses. “Maybe you do like it.”

“And maybe Aaron just liked golden cattle. We’ll never know.”

They do know, actually. Chas is very comfortable in the knowledge of what happened with the golden calf. John isn’t, though, because his biblical knowledge comes from cultural osmosis, Wikipedia, and Anglicans.

“You know I don’t understand that reference,” John complains.

“Order steak for me,” Chas says, knowing better than to invite biblical discussion. “Medium.”

“Coward,” John says brightly.

The proclamation is followed by the sound of John’s particular jaunty footsteps, so Chas returns his attention to his shoulder.

By the time he’s finished fishing everything out and taken a well-earned shower, Chas can smell their dinner.

He forgot to bring his bag in with him, but it’s not as if John hasn’t seen him less than a towel. At least this time Chas isn’t messy drunk.

“Dinner _ and _ a show?” John asks as Chas heads back into the bedroom in search of his spare clothes. “Mr. Mossimo really is treating me.”

Chas ignores that. “You got steak, too?” he asks, noticing the identical plates on the bed next to John. “You love pork chops.”

“I also like the windows closed in winter.”

He’s remembering one particular night, which is thoughtful if not quite correct, so Chas merely nods and focuses on looking for his bag.

It isn’t until John’s lets out his second overdramatic moan that Chas remembers he didn’t bring his bag in because he had John’s bag over his good shoulder and the other couldn’t support the weight of his own bag.

John was supposed to bring Chas’ bag in.

“You left my stuff in the car, didn’t you?”

John doesn’t pretend not to know what Chas is talking about. “I did.”

“You had one responsibility,” Chas tells him. “I asked you to do _one _thing, John.”

“Yeah, but I did order you a nice supper, didn’t I?”

He did. It doesn’t make up for leaving Chas in a damp towel, but Chas is more hungry than he’s mad at being damp.

“Where’s the silverware?” he asks as he climbs onto the unoccupied side of the bed. It’s a California king, so John hasn’t managed to take up all of it despite his obvious best efforts.

John reaches behind himself and grabs a ridiculously ornate fork and knife, which he holds out to Chas with a look on his face like a cat depositing a mouse at its owner’s feet.

It would be a live mouse, of course, because John doesn’t make anything easy, but if Chas wanted easy, he would have made a lot of different decisions when he was younger.

And now, but he doesn’t think about that.

John watches Chas take a bite, and Chas reluctantly nods.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” John crows. “The man who never likes other people’s cooking likes the expensive wagyu.”

Chas shrugs- he likes other people’s cooking when it’s good- and takes another bite.

The rest of the meal passes quietly, and Chas finds himself thinking of other meals he’s shared with John. Annoying as he is, John has a certain respect for meals. He’s always been appreciative of what Chas makes; even when Chas was burning most of what he made, John would sit down and eat what was edible in between jibes. Now, when Chas gets it right more often than not, John isn’t shy with his praise- he lures Zed out of her room with promises of Chas’ cooking, reminding her of dishes he’s made that she liked and assuring her Chas can make them just as well the second, third, and hundredth times.

Eating is also just about the only time John doesn’t have to have something to say. For the most part, he’s content just to enjoy it, even when he’s eating rest stop garbage.

Chas pretends not to see John’s fork dip into Chas’ mashed potatoes.

He also pretends not to watch as John eats his green beans. It’s hard to get John to eat well; for the most part, he eats whatever’s on hand or, failing that, easiest to make.

John finishes his green beans and steals a few of Chas’.

Chas draws the line at the meat.

“No,” he says, pushing John’s hand away.

“Mate…”

Chas deliberately cuts another bite for himself.

John sighs and, finished with his dinner, drops the plate over the edge of the bed.

Chas chews his forkful of steak and pretends he didn’t notice.

xx

Damp towel swapped for a dry, plush towel, Chas picks his way across the dark room to his side of the bed. He lifts the sheets and gently swings himself up.

Right onto John.

“Jesus, mate!”

“Why is your foot where a normal person’s back goes?” Chas grumbles. “And is it out of the way yet?”

“Does it matter? You already flattened it.”

Chas fights the urge to whine. “Please shut up.”

John grumbles, but Chas hears him shifting. When Chas tries to lie down again, none of John’s anatomy is in the way.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he does notice when he wakes up at six AM with John’s knee in his kidney.

“You’re the worst person I know,” Chas lies as he gets up. “I don’t know why I’m going to buy you breakfast with the credit card you stole.”

3.

John is lying in a hospital bed, small and gray and unrecognizable.

He’s asleep, and it makes Chas itch. John isn’t supposed to be asleep at four in the afternoon. He isn’t supposed to be fragile. He isn’t supposed to be still.

He isn’t supposed to be stoppable.

Yet here he is, breathing deeply the way John only does when he’s sedated.

It’s sentimental in a way John doesn’t have any use for, but Chas clasps John’s hand in his.

John is allowed to reach out. According to the rules only John is privy to, and even he doesn’t understand them all, only he is allowed to reach out.

You can’t reach for John. He can reach for you, if some stars or wounds align, but you can’t reach back.

Chas can be just as contrary as his best friend, though, so he settles into the uncomfortable hospital chair and reaches for John and holds his damn hand.

4.

Geraldine is going on her first date.

It’s hardly more than any of the play dates she went on when she was little, and it’s going to be supervised by the boy’s mother and Renee, but Chas is almost the length of the East Coast away, and his little girl likes boys, and he isn’t there to peer over her shoulder at the little monsters who think they’re allowed to break her heart.

He’s a bad kind of drunk, lonely and alone and sick from his chest to his guts, but he doesn’t think he’s called his ex-wife or their daughter. He isn’t sure where he left his phone, which is a good thing.

His heart hurts, so he’s trying John’s remedy.

His head hurts, so he’s lying down on the couch.

John’s footsteps are loud.

“This is rare.”

Chas tells him to go fuck himself.

“None of that was comprehensible,” John says cheerfully. “I’m going to guess you told me to get fucked, though. You’re very fond of saying that when you’re pissed.”

Chas frowns. “Leave me alone.”

“No idea what that was either, mate, but why don’t you budge up a bit? I’ll put a nice plastic bin here for tomorrow when you remember you aren’t eighteen anymore, and once you’ve finished, you can tell me what’s wrong. You like doing that.”

A light thump suggests John actually did put a trash can near Chas’ head.

He isn’t sure if that’s comforting or not.

The shifting of the cushions under Chas’ body definitely isn’t, but the warmth of John’s body curled up behind Chas makes up for it.

“Love you,” Chas mumbles.

John smiles. Chas can hear it when John says, “You’re still not making any sense, but I think you said something nice, so thank you.”

Chas nods, and rather than try to explain that the world is moving on without him, he lets the gentle rise and fall of John’s chest lull him to sleep.

5.

Zed locked herself in her room six hours ago and hasn’t made a sound since.

Chas doesn’t blame her. He can’t shake the sense of horror that’s been chasing him since they arrived in that little Nebraskan town and saw what had come to live there. It wound itself around his lungs when he first stepped out of the car, and the week of blood and death that followed only gave the horror sharper teeth to sink into him.

He wants to sleep, and he never wants to sleep again.

He called his rabbi the night before they left for the journey home. Rav Levy knows what Chas does with John, and it was a relief to hear him speak in Hebrew, the sound of it alone shaking loose some of the dread Chas had been holding in. His rabbi is old and warm, his face lined from years of smiling kindly at his congregation, but Chas can’t shake the feeling the man has seen things like the monsters Chas finds himself fighting with John and Zed.

Chas could drive to him, or Rav Levy’s daughter could drive her father over, but as much comfort as his rabbi would bring, Chas doesn’t want it.

He doesn’t want anything.

John opens the door to Chas’ room without knocking. 

“What is it?” Chas hears himself ask. He’s afraid of the answer, but hiding would only draw things out.

John gives him a crooked smile. “I can’t sleep, and I thought you probably wouldn’t be able to either.”

He’s right. Chas is too tired to sleep. He’s taken two showers and his skin is raw, but he can’t wash off the feeling of that town. “And your solution to that is?”

Adjusting the bedsheet around his shoulders- a flannel one Chas recognizes as his missing top sheet- John marches over to Chas’ bed and drops down onto it.

Chas sighs. “John, I really don’t think this is-”

“Is your rabbi coming by?”

“No,” Chas answers, just managing not to let himself contemplate the idea of bringing his beloved rabbi all the way into John’s den of horrors. Rav Levy probably wouldn’t be bothered; he’s been around for so long, Chas doubts anything can surprise him anymore. Which would probably prompt John to try to shock him, which Chas doesn’t want to risk. “I told him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Do you think I could go with you?”

If he weren’t so full of emptiness, Chas would be suspicious. “Rav Levy likes the sound of you for some reason, so I don’t see why not.”

John peers at him from the nest he’s made for himself on Chas’ bed. “That’s unusual.”

“Someone liking you? I know.”

“No, you not hating the idea of me coming near this part of you.”

It isn’t really a part of Chas- being Jewish is Chas. It’s a cornerstone of his existence. There’s no Chas without his Jewishness.

John knows that. He’s talking in circles, addressing something without addressing it, and Chas doesn’t have the energy to sort through John’s web of motivations.

“Just don’t be a dick,” Chas sighs.

“No promises.”

Message delivered, John rolls onto his belly, buries his face in Chas’ pillow, and goes quiet.

He doesn’t fall asleep right then, and when Chas decides he needs to sleep and gets into bed, John sighs as he wraps an arm around Chas’ waist 

Chas isn’t the only one with fears and nightmares. John has his demons, literal and not, and Chas doesn’t mind fending them off when he can. At least in bed, Chas doesn’t have to stand up to do it.


End file.
